[melsano]

Hi everyone. I'm new to this board, so i apologize if I'm posting in the wrong area..My affair with opiates started a few years ago after a back injury. I'm 28 and after the birth of my son at 23 I have been very depressed. Actually, it has been a mild depression since puberty. I'm overall a pretty normal person, but I'm shy, focused on money and other problems all the time. I love my family and I NEVER considered hurting myself or anyone else. I work full-time, own a home, and do dishes - you know all the "normal" mom things. My doc had me try a few different antidepressants, but they never worked. When I was a teen and mildly experimental, I tried percocets/vicodin a few times and really enjoyed it. It wasn't until my adult experience that they became so important to me. After my back injury, I had my first taste of oxycodone again. It was like a miracle for me. First, it helped my pain but there was something else. I smiled more. I worked harder. I was more creative at work. It wasn't a high, I just felt normal. I couldn't believe that after all these years I found something that seemed to put everything into perspective. To my dismay, I learned most of what there was to learn about opiates. I like to research anything foreign that goes into my body, so I did my research on my "miracle" drug. I didn't like what I read, but I weeded through the hype to find all of the factual information that I could. I understand the addiction that surrounds opiates, and now I have experienced it. Hopeful, I found a few articles about resistant depression and opiate treatment. When I suggested this to my doc, her demeanor completely changed and I was given a prescription for Ultram to get me off the true opiates. It was aweful! I'm at a loss here...It has been a couple of years and I have been on and off opiates - both illegally and legally. Lately, I have experience withdrawal quite a few times. It is torture that involves extreme fatigue and aggravating restless leg syndrome. I endure this every time, but when the pills are available again I purchase them. i never take more than my doc used to prescribe, but I know it is wrong to go about it this way. I just want to be normal. People tell me that I am addicted to opiates and it is my addiction that is causing me to go back. I then remind them that I was this way before the pills and that the pills only helped me. I don't know what to believe anymore because our society does not agree with opiates any longer. I would never take heroin. It is probably the easiest opiate to get your hands on, but I know the danger with that. My daily intake when I have a script is also relatively low. I will take no more than 40 mgs of oxycodone a day and pretty much the same for vicodin. I considered treatment, but I'm wondering if it is necessary since I have gone cold turkey so many times. Also, I think that they will treat the addiction and not the actual mental and physical pain of depression that I have been experiencing for so long. I hate to sound like an advocate for narcotics, but I don't see why patients can't be given what they know helps them without being made out into a junkie. Maybe this is the addiction talking, maybe it is the mild depression. I'm sorry this is so long, but I just wanted to get it all out. If anyone has any REAL objective info for me about opiate treatment for depression (it has been done as far as I've read for many years successfully until recently), please let me know. I just think I would continue to do well if my doc continued me on my opiate regimen. I know it sounds bad and many of you probably don't understand, but if anyone does please write back! Thanks for taking the time to read this long post....Melissa

[oxymoron]

Hi Mel,
I think you're in a phase I was in about a year ago- I was prescribed vicodin 5/500 40 per month for back pain. Unfortunately the 40 would last 7-10 days. If only I could get the 4-6 a day I was taking, all would be well. Here I am a year later with an 8-10 80 mg oxy habit daily, severe lack of energy, broke, job issues, wife issues. Just started my third round of suboxone treatment and if this don't work it might be inpatient rehab. (say goodbye to job and house and maybe wife). Anyway, the point is, the habit grows and what you deem to be effective today for "just making you a little bit better than you already are" will end up being a lot more than what you're taking now. I know it sucks but all of us need to deal with life on life's terms and realize there really isn't a magic pill that makes everything better (actually, there is but it's expensive, addictive and eventually deadly). I'm having a really hard time with the sweats even on the sub and the energy is gone,but what do you expect when you take 640-800 mg's a day of oxy snorted? Glad I'm not dead but it would be easier. My advice to you Melissa is quit cold turkey now while you still have a low intake....or if that's too much to handle, try the suboxone...there is plenty of info all over these forums about it. Good Luck

[melsano]

Thank you for your reply, oxymoron (i really do NOT want to call you that!). I really do appreciate your feedback. Perhaps you are right. I could be in a denial state where I am looking for justification to use these pills. Perhaps not. I don't really know anymore. It has been well over two years and I've not really grown too much of a tolerance because I have this strange procedure of taking a certain amt one day, then lowering the next, etc. it is very strange I know.

We are a society of addicts - of food, cigarettes, alcohol. So many things. When they are prescribed by a doc, we call it medication. My mom is bipolar/schizophrenic. She takes fourteen different "medications" a day (including others for physcial conditions) that keep her "normal" and honestly these medications do help. Without question. At one point when her medication wasn't regulated or she just wasn't on it, she was violent. She hallucinated frequently, smoked four packs of cigs a day, and was just mean and crazy. The condition has been present since my early childhood with different degrees of severity, but has been under control for about four solid years now. I thank her docs AND her medication. Bringing this up you might think that I am suffering from one of those illnesses because they can be genetic, but hers were basically induced by regression and poor therapy. My grandparents put her in YPI (Yale psych in ct) for getting caught smoking pot (sigh) and they did all sorts of weird experiments on her there that left her completely messed up.I just wanted to make it clear that I don't suffer from any of her symptoms... Anyway, I guess the point I'm trying to make is that drugs, um medications, are sometimes needed. If a person takes something daily prescribed by a doc for the rest of their life and leads a perfectly normal life, are they an addict? It is a fine line trying to separate what the law and media try to feed us and what actually works for us. Again, this could be the addict in me, but I think it is perfectly logical. I wish I could talk to a doc that has performed opiate depression treatment before and see the progress of a patient. We assume it is all bad because that is what we are taught...I understand that there are true addicts that increase dosages. That can be an absolutely deadly game. And I really do wish the best for you in the future. I can't imagine the pain you are enduring withdrawing from that many oxys a day. It is painful w/ just my 40 mg or less a day. I pray that you can kick your habit. If it is effecting your finances and your home life, it should be stopped....this may sound crazy, but when I do not have my pills, it effects my family. Again it was like this before I ever started taking them. I used to be a moderate drinker back then, but once I had a child, I quit drinking. Maybe a beer here or there, but that's it.

I know I've probably made some of you on this board angry with my defensive words about opiates. I do apologize, but I want you all to understand that I am NOT in recovery right now and honestly I don't really think I WANT to be. Of course I know that something is wrong with what I am doing - that is part of why I started posting. Perhaps I will begin to learn that I am really addicted as I continue to communicate on here. I just want you all to understand that I am new to all of this. If I hadn't experienced withdrawal, I probably never would've suspected any problem at all. Good luck, oxymoron and everyone. I really do hope that you reach your goals. SORRY THIS IS SO LONG AGAIN

[dobo]

Hi Oxymoron,

Good gawd man, are you completely unfamiliar with the concepts of self control and tapering? Say you do go to inpatient rehab, what will prevent you from going right back to it once you get out if you have no self control?

Tapering works and you can wean off without the pains of withdrawal. My habit began almost 2½ years ago in an immediate and bigtime way with bags of iv dilaudid and supplemental morphine. This was the equivalency of hundreds of mg of oxycodone. For two years now I've been weaning off as I healed from this injury that was initially termed "catastrophic". At this point I'm down to an average of 7 (yes, seven) milligrams of oxycodone per day. Yes, I've suffered from pain at initial plateaus of reduction until I stabilized at these levels but this was injury related pain, not withdrawal pains. I haven't experienced withdrawal symptoms since early this year when I'd sometimes wake up at 3-4 AM in withdrawal.

You can do this too.

dobo

[abey042000]

Mel

Very interesting topic you've brought up. I think, I may do some research on opiate treatment as well. Keep in touch. Is this something u plan on continuing, and pursing? I'm curious to hear what you have found about the research.

[JIM1321]

I AM ON A MORPHINE PUMP, I TAKE 12 15 MGS OF SHORT ACTING MORPHINE AND 15 3O MG LONG LASTING

I HATE IT. I JUST FOUND OUT THE REASON IHAVE NOT BEEN SLEEPING IS BECUASE OF THE SIDE EFFECT OF THE MORPHINE.

I HAVE HAD 12 BACK SURGERIES AND I CAN'T EVEN GET A JOB I AM A MESS. I KNOW THIS AND I AM GOING TO STOP.

I HAVE STATED TO WEAN MYSELF OFF THE MORPHINE AND CAN SEE THE DIFFERENCE OF COURSE THERE IS MORE PAIN BUT IT IS WORTH IT.

I COULDN'T GO TO THE BATH ROOM, I COULDNT SLEEP AND I STILL HAD PAIN AFTER TAKING ALL THESE MEDS

I AM GOING TO DO IT I HAVE NO CHOICE.

THERE IS NO END TO THIS IF YOU LET IT HAPPEN. ONE HAS TO TAKE CARE OF THEMSELVES I GO TO A PAIN CLINIC AND THERE ONLY ANSWER IS MORE PILLS. I HAVE HAD SO MANY SEVERE SIDE EFFECTS AND DIDN'T CARE BUIT NOW I DO

I AM ASKING GOD TO HELP ME AND NOW I AM ASKING ALLOF YOU TOPRAY FOR ME. ITS A BATTLE WE CAN'T WIN AND IT'S NO FUN.

THAK YOU AND GOD BLESS YOU ALL

[pavlovsgod]

read rational recovery ..it works